Hello everyone! My name is Dave, and Im living in Sao Paulo working for a big multi national but am from Connecticut. Last weekend i went diving for the first time, immediately got hooked, signed up cor the Aff course and a week later im at Level 3...so im really enjoying it.

The canopy is understandably massive given my novice level...however im looking forward to getting my own stuff after AFF. What is a reasonable size to transition to that i could stick with for a while? Also, i need some reccomendations on brands for chutes and rigs...theres too many options out there! Thanks!

I'd take your time with it, if I were you. Rushing downsizing leads to unnecessary injuries. Go a size at a time, 20 square feet at a time or so, and get comfortable with that canopy size before downsizing again.

I'm getting pretty close to a 1:1 wing loading now, and plan to stop once I get to 1:1. I enjoy the canopy ride and am not planning to get into swooping anytime in the next couple of years. My choice for gear is basically the size I'm currently on now or one size smaller if I decide I like that.

If you plan to keep downsizing, you can buy secondhand gear pretty reasonably, and that's the route you should go. This kind of depends on how easy it is for you to find gear in the sizes you're looking for, though. I'm a big guy and it's pretty hard to find stuff in my size range. Since I'm not planning to downsize beyond that point, I'll probably end up dropping the tax refund and a big extra wad of cash on new gear. I'll probably be jumping the same gear for several years.

The other benefit of sticking with rental gear early on is that if you switch out rigs a lot you can start seeing features of the rig you like. My home DZ has a good selection and I've already decided that I really like the Vector rigs with the magnetic riser covers. The ones with tuck tabs are always popping the tuck tabs out prematurely.

My last AFF instructor was a very hard person to have a conversation with. He was far too interested in getting as many tandems as he could in, in fact he came up to me twice to reintroduce himself as my instructor, and ask what level I was taking. Quite frustrating.